Yesterday, the Eurasian Peoples’ Extraordinary Assembly was held in the building of the Moscow government in the framework of the Congress of the Peoples of Russia entitled ”Friendship of Peoples - Unity of Russia", dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the Eurasian People’s Assembly. Representatives of 30 countries, members of the Council of the Eurasian Peoples’ Assembly, representatives of federal and regional authorities of the Russian Federation, Russian diplomats and ambassadors of several states participated in the meeting.
The goal of the Eurasian Peoples’ Assembly is to strengthen the Eurasian public integration of peoples for peace and harmony through public diplomacy, expansion and deepening of contacts between peoples in addition to the development of political interaction, cultural and ethnic, transport and logistics, trade and financial ties. Among the priorities is the participation of the CIS representatives and the Eurasian peoples in the work of the international organizations and associations such as the CIS, the UN, UNESCO, the EAEU, the EU, the SCO and the BRICS.
The chairman of the Council of the Russian Peoples’ Assembly, Svetlana Smirnova, explained that the mission of the Assembly is to shape the consciousness of a man of the third millennium, based on the spiritual and moral principles: "We want as many people as possible to be oriented toward cooperation, co-creation, strengthening friendship, peace, consent between people of different nationalities, between peoples of different countries and between countries themselves.’’
Head of the Department for National Policy and Interregional Relations of the City of Moscow Vitaly Suchkov said that Moscow is not only a major cultural, business, scientific and educational center, but also a center for the international friendship and cooperation: ”By working in all directions in order to strengthen the interethnic harmony in Moscow, in 2016, we adopted the national policy strategy until 2025 on the basis of the federal strategy. And one of its key issues was a desire to work in the following directions - family, kindergarten, school, university. All this work is aimed at ensuring that our young people get knowledge about each other, the skills of communicating with children of different nationalities. "
Chairman of the Council of the Kyrgyzstan Peoples’ Assembly Tokon Mamytov said that more than 2,500 representatives of 60 countries of the Eurasian continent participated in the first Eurasian Peoples’ Congress in March 2017 in Moscow: "The 20-year experience in strengthening peace among nations allowed the Assembly of Peoples of Russia to become the pivot at the first Eurasian Peoples’ Forum on the establishment of the Eurasian Peoples’ Assembly, as well as the creation of an organizing committee for holding congresses, which included representatives of the non-governmental organizations of Austria, Belarus, Russia, Serbia, etc. The bilateral relations between the Russian Peoples’ Assembly and the Kyrgyzstan Peoples’ Assembly resulted in the signing of a cooperation agreement on March 22, 2018, in Bishkek. We also took part in many events organized in Russia, France, India and other countries. "
Member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, the chairman of the Volgograd department of the Russian Peoples’ Assembly, Lidia Budchenko told Vestnik Kavkaza, that ‘’The Eurasian Peoples’ Assembly originated from the Russian Peoples’ Assembly. We, Russians, realized that we can not talk about friendship only within the country, because there are so many people outside of Russia, who were born in the same country called the USSR. We are people of the same blood and we have one thought and one task - to live in peace, harmony and create good conditions for the future generations, for our children and grandchildren. We give all our strength and free time to social work in this public organization, gathering roundtables, holding conferences, research work, forums, meetings, competitions, so that everyone living in the country understands that the country is united when the peoples are united. Then we are invincible neither economically, nor politically, nor by military means.
The head of the Volgograd branch of the Russian Peoples’ Assembly called the Battle of Stalingrad the basis of the international fighting brotherhood: "Now we are working on the Battle of Stalingrad encyclopedia, which was published seven times in ten years. The authors of this encyclopedia are more than 1000 people of different nationalities. When the multinational Soviet people performed the feat at Stalingrad, we were united, and today we must be united. We are holding cultural events in Volgograd, we have an alley of national cultures, we collect pictures of children of different nationalities, we have a collection of paintings by the participants of the Battle of Stalingrad and the Great Patriotic War and their descendants about the war and the Battle of Stalingrad. More than 100 paintings have already been donated to Volgograd. We were presented with paintings from Azerbaijan, from our republics - Dagestan, Tatarstan. By the Victory anniversary, we will have a whole gallery of artists of different nationalities, the price of victory and happy life inside the country today by their eyes.”
Speaking about contacts with the republics of the North and South Caucasus, Lydia Budchenko noted: ”The national public associations of Dagestan, North Ossetia and Ingushetia are very active, Azerbaijan, especially Azerbaijani Youth Organisation, is actively working. The head of the Volgograd department of the Azerbaijani Youth Organization, Dunya Akhadova, heads the youth association ‘We are Russians’. Volgograd is home to a single family of united peoples. I am impressed that the peoples show great respect and great attention to each other. We never have any problems, not even at the roundtables between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. The relations are built on the basis of mutual respect and tolerance.I do not like it when they say that tolerance is the indulgence. We show towards each other not tolerance, but respect, we are preserving culture, identity of our and other peoples. We are tolerant, we are united, we respect each other, we visit each other during holidays, at festivals, we participate in general festivals. Representatives of 15-20 nationalities, children and adults, mixed cultural collectives perform at a single stage. So the whole Caucasus feels comfortable in Volgograd. "
